What is the payment gateway?

The term payment gateway can often be easily used to describe various payment service providers, or pSps, that accept electronic payment methods. However, in the strictest sense, a gateway is a middleman that can sit between a merchant's virtual pOS (point of sale) or online shopping cart management, credit card payment gateway，and we act as a first-timer from primarily enterprise merchants to the rest of the payments industry value chain interface.

Independent Gateway Service providers: These are gateways that can connect to a third-party platform merchant account provider or processor.

Examples of full service payment providers with gateways or processors pre-integrated into Zuora are: Orbit by Chase Orbit, Merchant eSolutions, Little & Co., Ingenico Epayments, Qvalent Express Gateway, Website payments pro by paypal.

Before choosing a gateway, it is important to consider the pros and cons of each.

Merchant Account provider

A merchant account provider (or merchant acquirer) provides a business development bank account capable of receiving and transmitting business funds for e-commerce payments. The merchant account provider owns the merchant relationship and is usually the main interface for the merchant, all related to payment acceptance, processing, and customer service. Their typical responsibilities are:

Merchant processor

Merchant processors receive and store merchant transaction data and process payment transactions by connecting to "backbone" networks such as Visa and MasterCard. In effect, they receive card details from the gateway and decide which network switch to route them to. Receive relevant data from network information and pass it back to the gateway. Some payment processors also offer other payment services, such as payment gateways and access services.

Risk Management

Of these features, the first is probably the most critical, as it drives merchant card acceptance and consumer demand for specific network-branded cards. Most consumers only know they have a Visa or Mastercard, not the issuing bank. This is not a coincidence, but part of a carefully crafted brand strategy at the card association/network where they fund and drive the creation of issuer-agnostic, consumer-friendly card features and programs like Zero Liability or Travel /Accident/Lease Car Insurance, etc., Merchant Specific Loyalty program promotions.